About a month ago I thought I'd would see if by taking the coronavirus information I share out from under the Mapz site an set up its own site, whether or not Google would give the site some love. Google has been good in limiting bad information and bad players, which is good, but for me that also means they're giving no love to the information I provide. That didn't change with the coronavirus information now on a separate site.
So instead of having old out of date information on one site and the new information on another, I decided to move the coronavirus information and data back to the Mapz site. Now all links point to the current and up-to-date information.
I started collecting coronavirus information as I found what was coming from the government and the media wasn't well organised. The government's lack of information at the time (almost nothing useful) and then watching for articles on the internet meant I had a good handle on what was going on around me. Perhaps not great, but much better than anywhere else that I could find. I felt safer and more informed. The first site was for public exposure locations around Victoria which also provides a daily running total of cases, change in cases, deaths and community infection numbers where the cases weren't from a known source.
Public Exposure Locations In Victoria
Interestingly I found I'd collated quite a bit of information and was able to identity a fair number of the outbreaks. It wasn't until much later (late September) the Victorian government provided up-to--date figures on aged care that I realised just how much information the government had withheld. Aged care premises with dozens of cases never got mentioned by the government or the media. It turned out that around half the cases were aged care or health workers. That helped to identify the risk to the general public was about half of what the government and media would have us believe.
Outbreak locations in Victoria
Finally around June some postcode data started coming out, but unfortunately that didn't last long. Then in August the Victorian government to their credit started releasing daily figures for individual postcodes. I found their online maps difficult to use (early versions nearly impossible), and whilst it did take some work, I created a postcode map that allowed me to more easily see the number of new cases and also a rough indicated of the number of cases for a range of days over the last seven days. Now I could better see what was happening locally day and over say the past week. I had options. Now whilst the data isn't perfect because it uses residential location for postcode (even post office boxes), I suspect it's a good indication for 80% plus of cases.
Coronavirus data by postcode location in Victoria
All of the data I collect and collect is now available in the one place at www.Mapz.com.au/coronavirusvictoria/.
Finally, when I find information I feel may be useful to others I write a blog post such as this one. From the Coronavirus Victoria pages if you click on the News menu item you'll see only posts that related to the coronavirus and no other posts.
I hope the information helps in some way.
Kelvin Eldridge
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